Team Leadership

Why organisations work with Tim Kröger Two Whitbread Round the World podiums (1993/94 second, 1997/98 third) and a Mumm 36 World Championship give him direct, named experience of multi-week competitive performance, not generic adventure narrative. Author of Ich bin wir, das Crew-Konzept (Delius Klasing, 2013), a published thesis on how international crews are built and held together, which he uses as the spine of his corporate sessions. Two America’s Cup challenger campaigns (Le Defi Areva and Shosholoza) give him operating experience inside multinational, multilingual professional teams under heavy sponsor and media scrutiny. Holds a working coaching role with the German Sailing Association on the Olympic Mixed Offshore discipline, so the material is current, not retired-athlete reminiscence. Awarded the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt in 1983 alongside the German Admiral’s Cup team, anchoring credibility at national level rather than only within sailing circles. Biography highlights Whitbread Round the World Race: second place 1993/94 aboard Intrum Justitia, third place 1997/98 aboard Swedish Match. Admiral’s Cup winner with the German team, 1983; recipient of the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt the same year. Mumm 36 World Champion, 1995, aboard Corum. America’s Cup challenger campaigns with Le Defi Areva (France) and Shosholoza (South Africa). Author of Ich bin wir, das Crew-Konzept (Delius Klasing, 2013) and Abgerechnet wird im Ziel (2001). Trainer for the Mixed Offshore Olympic discipline with the German Sailing Association; Race Crew Manager in J Class yacht programmes. Biography The Whitbread Round the World Race runs nine months. A crew sails roughly 32,000 nautical miles, much of it in the Southern Ocean. Tim Kröger has finished it twice on the podium: second on Intrum Justitia in 1993/94 under Lawrie Smith, third on Swedish Match in 1997/98 as watch captain. That is the operating environment his corporate work draws from. In 1993 he became the first German to make professional offshore sailing his primary career. The decade after produced a Mumm 36 world title aboard Corum in 1995 and two America’s Cup challenger campaigns: the French Le Defi Areva syndicate from 2001 to 2003, and the South African Shosholoza programme from 2005 to 2007. Both involved running the operational seam between sailors, shore crew, designers and sponsors. His book Ich bin wir, das Crew-Konzept, published by Delius Klasing in 2013, sets out how a crew is actually built and held together: who decides, how watches hand over, how mistakes are handled while the boat is still moving. The argument carries because the crews he describes are named ones he sailed in, not composite illustrations. He continues to work as a trainer for the German Sailing Association in the Mixed Offshore Olympic discipline and as Race Crew Manager in J Class yacht programmes. The Admiral’s Cup win in 1983 brought him the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt, Germany’s highest sporting honour, awarded by the Federal President. Key speaking topics High-performance team dynamics Leadership under sustained pressure Decision-making in offshore racing Communication across multinational crews Accountability inside small expert teams Resilience and recovery on long campaigns Building and managing elite crews Ideal for Executive teams and ExCos preparing for sustained operational pressure (transformations, integrations, restructures) Leadership offsites where the brief is team behaviour, not strategy content Sales and operations conferences seeking a credible narrative anchor with serious substance behind it After-dinner and incentive audiences in DACH and international corporate settings Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for how elite crews hold decision quality when conditions deteriorate Specific techniques for handover, watch discipline and post-error recovery, drawn from named campaigns A clearer view of what accountability looks like in practice inside small expert teams A reframed sense of what sustained pressure does to communication, and what disciplined crews do about it

Why organisations work with Jill Scott A first-hand account of the dressing-room culture that produced England’s first major senior football trophy in 56 years, told by a player who was inside it across nine major tournaments. A career built in the connecting roles, not the headline ones. Scott can speak credibly to the people in any organisation whose value is hard to measure but visible the moment they leave. Mainstream reach without loss of credibility. She is recognisable from I’m A Celebrity and A League of Their Own, which makes her sessions land with audiences beyond the usual sports-keynote crowd. An honest perspective on the long arc of a career: from one of the first central FA contracts through to MBE, retirement, and a second life in business and broadcast. Biography highlights 161 senior caps and 27 goals for England across 16 years. Member of the England squad that won UEFA Women’s EURO 2022. One FA WSL title, three FA Cups and multiple Continental Cup wins with Manchester City; FA Women’s Premier League Cup and FA Women’s Cup with Everton. MBE for services to women’s football. Inducted into the National Football Museum Hall of Fame. Winner of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! 2022; team captain on Sky’s A League of Their Own. Co-owner of Boxx2Boxx Coffee, Manchester, opened in 2021. Biography England had not won a senior major football trophy in 56 years when the Lionesses lifted the EURO 2022 trophy at Wembley. Jill Scott was on the pitch in the closing minutes of that final, her ninth major tournament for her country and her last as a professional. The career behind that moment is more instructive than the moment itself. Scott played 161 times for England, signed one of the first central FA contracts offered to women, and built a club record at Everton and Manchester City that included a WSL title, three FA Cups and a string of domestic honours. She was, in the football vocabulary, a box-to-box midfielder. The role rarely makes highlight reels. It is the role that holds a team together. That is the through-line of her speaking work. Scott talks about what it takes to stay useful to a high-performing group for fifteen years: how role clarity beats reputation, how culture is set by the people who do the unglamorous work, how you keep standards when nobody is watching. She speaks from inside the dressing room, not from a coaching manual. The post-football chapter has given her a second platform. She won I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! in 2022, captains a team on Sky’s A League of Their Own, and co-owns Boxx2Boxx Coffee in Manchester with her partner Shelly Unitt. The MBE and the National Football Museum Hall of Fame entry sit alongside that work as the formal record. Key speaking topics Team performance under pressure Culture and standards inside elite squads Role clarity and the value of connecting players Resilience across a long career Women’s sport and professional pathways Life after elite performance Ideal for Leadership and management offsites where culture and team chemistry are the agenda HR, talent and people-function audiences working on engagement and retention Conferences seeking a credible women’s-sport voice with mainstream broadcast recognition Customer or partner events that need a recognisable speaker who can hold a room without an academic frame Audience outcomes A specific account of what set the EURO 2022 squad apart from the squads that fell short before it A working definition of the connecting roles in a team and how to value them Stories from inside nine major tournaments that illustrate standards, recovery, and squad cohesion A view from a player who watched women’s football professionalise around her, and what that says about institutional change

Why organisations work with Greg Rusedski A first-hand account of competing in a Grand Slam final under exceptional public pressure, the 1997 US Open played in the days after the death of Princess Diana, told by someone who was on the court. A 16-year tour career and 15 ATP titles, anchored by a serve that held the world record at 149 mph, giving him direct authority on the relationship between preparation, technique, and execution. Nearly two decades inside the BBC Wimbledon commentary box, which gives him a working analyst’s read on the modern game, useful for audiences who want sport informed by craft, not nostalgia. A confident, warm after-dinner presence, regularly booked for corporate dinners, hosting, awards, and tennis hospitality, where the brief is engagement rather than abstract leadership theory. Biography highlights 1997 US Open singles finalist; first Briton in the US Open final in more than 60 years. Career-high ATP World No. 4; British No. 1 in 1997, 1999, and 2006. 1999 Grand Slam Cup champion; 15 ATP singles titles. 1997 BBC Sports Personality of the Year and ITV Sports Champion of the Year. BBC Wimbledon commentator since 2008, with previous broadcast roles at Sky Sports and Eurosport. Ambassador for Borne, the medical research charity for premature birth. Biography Reaching a Grand Slam final is rare. Reaching one in the week after Princess Diana’s funeral, in front of a global audience expecting something more than tennis, is rarer still. The 1997 US Open final put Rusedski on Arthur Ashe Stadium against Pat Rafter, and made him the first British man in the US Open final in more than six decades. That season took him to ATP World No. 4 and to the 1997 BBC Sports Personality of the Year award. The serve, clocked at 149 mph, held the world record for years before Andy Roddick broke it. Across a 16-year career he won 15 ATP singles titles and the 1999 Grand Slam Cup, and was British No. 1 in 1997, 1999, and 2006. Since retirement in 2007, signalled live on the BBC alongside Sue Barker, he has been a fixture in the BBC Wimbledon commentary team, with earlier broadcasting at Sky Sports and Eurosport. The commentary work keeps him close to the technical detail of the modern game, which is what gives his speaking the texture of a working analyst rather than a retired pro. For corporate audiences his content is concrete: the preparation routines that kept him on tour for sixteen years, the small decisions inside a tight match, the experience of carrying national expectation, and the discipline of performing when the conditions are not the ones you trained for. Key speaking topics Performance under public pressure Elite tennis and the modern professional game Career longevity in individual sport Mindset and preparation in competition After-dinner sports storytelling Event hosting and corporate hospitality Ideal for Corporate dinners, awards nights, and client hospitality, particularly tennis-themed events around Wimbledon and the US Open. Sales and customer-facing teams that respond to first-hand sports performance content. Sponsor activations and partner events for brands in tennis, broadcasting, and premium hospitality. Audience outcomes A direct account of what it takes to compete in the late stages of a Grand Slam. Specific examples of how elite players prepare, recover, and reset between points and matches. A working commentator’s read on the current state of professional tennis. A confident, well-paced after-dinner experience built around real career moments rather than generic motivation.

Why organisations work with Oli France He brings continuously updated, documented evidence rather than a single career anecdote. The Ultimate Seven Project, currently mid-sequence, gives every keynote a fresh expedition reference point that has happened in the last twelve months. His material is built around named, verifiable terrain, including Iraq’s highest peak, militia-controlled forest in DR Congo, the Aleppo region of Syria, and the 405-mile solo crossing of frozen Lake Baikal hauling a 60kg sledge. The Death Valley to Denali expedition, a 3,588-mile, 64-day journey covered by BBC, The Times and National Geographic, gives the keynote a credible decision-making case study with real, named risk variables. He is the founder of Wild Edge and host of The Wild Edge Podcast, which means his speaking content is built on conversations with operators in extreme environments, not borrowed leadership theory. He works fluently across formats: small executive groups, conference audiences of 500-plus, and virtual delivery, with named bureau credits across UK and European corporate, healthcare, and industrial buyers. Biography highlights Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and qualified Winter Mountain Leader, holding a BA in Outdoor Leadership and the British Mountain Leader summer and winter awards. Author of The Trail of the Mountain Folk (2017), based on a 108-day solo winter crossing of the mountainous spine of Asia from Hong Kong to Istanbul, covering eleven countries and fourteen mountain climbs. Founder of Wild Edge, host of The Wild Edge Podcast. Currently completing The Ultimate Seven, a world-first series of human-powered journeys from lowest point to highest summit on each continent, being filmed by True to Nature for broadcast. Death Valley to Denali, 3,588 miles in 64 days, the first person this century to complete the journey by human power. Coverage in BBC, The Times, National Geographic and Red Bull. Has led expeditions in over 75 countries including Iraq, DR Congo, Somalia, Socotra, Siberia, Tajikistan, and the Aleppo region of Syria. Biography Lac Assal in Djibouti is the lowest point on the African continent. Kilimanjaro is the highest. Oli France cycled and climbed the 1,636 miles between them in 28 days, the first leg of an ongoing world-first sequence called The Ultimate Seven. The South America leg followed in January 2025, 1,730 miles from Laguna del Carbon to Aconcagua in 34 days, through 49 mph Patagonian winds and 43-degree desert heat. The pattern matters because it is not a single career chapter. France runs a continuously updated expedition record, each leg of the project giving him fresh, documented material on planning under unknowns, leading small teams through compounding risk, and holding composure when the route ahead is genuinely unclear. The Death Valley to Denali leg in spring 2024 was covered by the BBC, The Times, National Geographic and Red Bull. His credentials sit underneath the work, not in front of it. France is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, holds a BA in Outdoor Leadership and both summer and winter British Mountain Leader awards. His first book, The Trail of the Mountain Folk, was published in 2017 after he travelled overland alone from Hong Kong to Istanbul across the spine of Asia in winter, eleven countries and fourteen mountain climbs over 108 days. He founded Wild Edge to lead small groups into hard-to-reach terrain, and hosts The Wild Edge Podcast, where he interviews operators working at the extreme end of human performance. For senior audiences, the value is specific. France gives leadership teams a decision-making case study with real, named consequences: minefields, militia, illness, dehydration, weather windows that close inside an hour. The keynote is built for groups looking to test how their own composure holds up when the comfortable version of the plan stops working. Key speaking topics Resilience under sustained pressure High-performing teams in remote and high-risk environments Decision-making with incomplete information Self-leadership and composure Expedition planning and risk management Vision, commitment and ambitious goal-setting Ideal for Executive leadership offsites and CEO summits where the brief calls for a credible non-management voice on resilience and judgement Sales kick-offs, all-hands and conference keynotes seeking a specific expedition narrative rather than generic motivational content Programme leads responsible for high-stakes change rollouts, restructures or operational pressure points After-dinner and award ceremony slots where authority and storytelling matter equally Audience outcomes A working language for composure: how senior people hold their judgement together when the plan stops cooperating A specific, recent expedition case study attendees can reference with their own teams afterwards A reset on what counts as an obstacle and what counts as a decision under uncertainty A renewed appetite for ambitious, defensible goals tied to a credible planning method

About Clive Tyldesley Clive Tyldesley is a television sports broadcaster. He was ITV’s senior football commentator from 1998 until 2020. In that role, he has led the ITV commentary team at four World Cups and four European Championships, and been lead commentator on 17 UEFA Champions League finals and a commentator on nine FA Cup finals for ITV. He won the prestigious Royal Television Society Sports Commentator of the Year in 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2005, and was voted the Sony Radio Awards’ Sports Broadcaster of the Year in 1983. He currently serves as a commentator for ITV Sport, Amazon Prime, TalkSPORT, CBS/Paramount Plus in USA and Rangers Football Club on their in-house Rangers TV service. In 2021 his first book was published by Headline: the semi-autobiographical ‘Not for me, Clive’. Following requests from his social media followers Clive has also made prints of his famous commentary charts available to purchase online. Tyldesley was born in Radcliffe, Lancashire, and was educated at Bury Grammar School, Kirkham Grammar School and the University of Nottingham. He obtained an honours degree in Industrial Economics, but always wanted to pursue a career in sports commentating. In June 1975, he began his broadcast career straight from university with Radio Trent in Nottingham, where he became their regular Nottingham Forest reporter. In April 1977, he joined Radio City (Liverpool) and remained there for the next 12 years. After succeeding Elton Welsby as City’s sports editor, he covered the successes of Everton and Liverpool through the late 1970s and 1980s. Tyldesley was on-air at the scene of the Heysel disaster in 1985, but did not attend Liverpool’s tragic FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough in 1989. He was heavily involved in City’s coverage of the aftermath of the disaster.

Why organisations work with David Brabham He has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans outright, a 24-hour team sport where one weak link across 60 people ends the race. That is a different reference point to draw on than a pure individual-sport narrative. He is the only driver in the history of the American Le Mans Series to win races and take pole positions in all four competitive classes, a credential that signals adaptability across very different cars, teams, and race formats. He carries the Brabham name through three operating contexts: driver for the family F1 team, overall Le Mans winner for Peugeot, and founder of Brabham Automotive. Audiences get sport, corporate, and entrepreneurial perspectives from one speaker. He stayed in the car at Simtek in 1994 after the death of his team mate Roland Ratzenberger at Imola. When he speaks about composure under pressure, the source material is direct. He is comfortable in after-dinner and hosted formats as well as keynotes, which gives event teams flexibility on how to place him in a programme. Biography highlights Overall winner, 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans, with Peugeot (908 HDi FAP), co-driving with Alexander Wurz and Marc Gene. Le Mans GT1 class winner in 2007 and 2008 with Aston Martin Racing (DBR9). American Le Mans Series LMP champion, 2009 and 2010, with Patron Highcroft Racing and Acura. Formula One driver with Brabham (1990) and Simtek (1994); team mate to Roland Ratzenberger. Japanese GT Championship winner, 1996. Bathurst 1000 winner, 1997. Founder of Brabham Automotive and the BT62 track car, launched in London in 2018. Member of the British Racing Drivers’ Club. Patron of the UK cancer charity Hope for Tomorrow. Biography Le Mans is a 24-hour race with roughly 60 people behind every car and a failure rate that runs close to half the grid. Winning it outright once is a career. David Brabham did it in 2009, with Peugeot, having already taken the GT1 class twice in the two previous years with Aston Martin. The pattern underneath those results is the story he brings to corporate audiences. He is the only driver in the history of the American Le Mans Series to have won races and taken poles in all four classes, from prototype to production GT. Back-to-back ALMS titles in 2009 and 2010 with Patron Highcroft and Acura came in a series where small execution advantages decide seasons. Consistency at that level is a team capability, not a personal one, and he talks about it that way. The wider career sharpens the material. He drove in Formula One for his family team in 1990 and for Simtek in 1994, where he lost team mate Roland Ratzenberger at Imola and continued to race the rest of the season. Later he built Brabham Automotive around the BT62 and launched it publicly in London in 2018, carrying the family brand into its own manufacturing business. For senior audiences the value is practical. He can describe, from the cockpit and the pit wall, how elite teams handle risk, prepare for conditions they cannot control, and recover when something goes wrong mid-race. The references are specific, named, and drawn from the highest level of professional motorsport. Key speaking topics High-performance teamwork Decision-making under pressure Leadership in competitive environments Resilience and focus after setbacks Brand building and heritage Preparation and execution at elite level Ideal for Senior leadership teams looking at how elite performance environments coordinate under pressure Sales and commercial leadership meetings focused on consistency of execution Automotive, engineering, and manufacturing organisations with technical workforces Annual conferences and after-dinner programmes where event teams want a credible non-business voice in the room Audience outcomes A clear picture of how a 60-person team wins a 24-hour race, and which of those mechanics transfer to a corporate setting Specific examples of how elite drivers prepare for conditions they cannot control on the day A direct account of composure and continuity after a team loss, from someone who lived it in 1994 A different vocabulary for talking about risk, handover, and recovery inside a business

Why organisations work with Juan Pablo Montoya One of three drivers in history to win at the top tier of Formula 1, IndyCar, and the NASCAR Cup Series, giving him a rare lens on how elite teams differ across cultures and disciplines. Operated inside the highest-stakes performance environments in sport: Williams and McLaren in Formula 1, Chip Ganassi Racing in IndyCar, Team Penske in IndyCar and IMSA. Audiences hear about team execution from inside those organisations, not as commentary. A first-hand account of decision-making at 300 km/h, where the cost of a mistake is immediate, which translates directly for leaders managing high-pressure commercial calls. Bilingual (English and Spanish) and Latin American, which makes him relevant for global organisations with significant Hispanic markets or workforces. Biography highlights 1999 CART Series Champion with Chip Ganassi Racing, the youngest CART champion at the time at age 24. Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner, in 2000 and 2015. Won the 2000 race on his first attempt. Formula 1 career across Williams and McLaren: 7 wins, 30 podiums, 13 pole positions, and third in the 2002 and 2003 World Drivers’ Championships. Three-time winner of the 24 Hours of Daytona. 2019 IMSA SportsCar Championship with Team Penske. One of only three drivers to win races in Formula 1, IndyCar, and the NASCAR Cup Series. Biography The seat of a Formula 1 car is one of the most unforgiving leadership environments in sport. Decisions arrive at hundreds of kilometres per hour, the team behind the driver runs into the hundreds, and the margin between winning and crashing is measured in tenths. Juan Pablo Montoya spent two decades inside that environment, at the top of every major motorsport discipline. He won the CART championship in 1999 as a rookie with Chip Ganassi Racing, then won the Indianapolis 500 the following year on his first attempt. Formula 1 followed: seven Grand Prix wins and 30 podiums across Williams and McLaren, including a Monaco win in 2003 and back-to-back third-place finishes in the World Drivers’ Championship in 2002 and 2003. He then crossed disciplines that almost nobody else has crossed at the top tier. Wins in the NASCAR Cup Series. A second Indianapolis 500 in 2015 with Team Penske. Three victories in the 24 Hours of Daytona, and the 2019 IMSA SportsCar Championship. Only two other drivers in history have won at the top of Formula 1, IndyCar, and NASCAR. That cross-discipline record is what gives his keynote substance. He has worked inside Williams, McLaren, Ganassi, and Penske, four of the most demanding performance organisations in sport, and can speak directly to how they differ in how they prepare drivers, manage teams, and recover from failure. Key speaking topics High-performance team execution Composure and decision-making under pressure Cross-cultural team leadership in elite sport Resilience and reinvention across careers Motorsport, Formula 1, and IndyCar Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and executive development programmes Sales kick-offs and high-performance commercial team events Organisations with a Latin American footprint or Hispanic audience Automotive, technology, and sponsorship-aligned brand events Audience outcomes A first-hand view of how Formula 1, IndyCar, and NASCAR teams prepare for and recover from high-stakes moments. A clearer sense of what composure looks like in practice when decisions cannot be deferred. Specific examples of how trust between a driver and their team is built, tested, and rebuilt. Cross-cultural perspective on what separates elite teams in different national sporting cultures.

Why organisations work with Mika Häkkinen Two World Championships won against Michael Schumacher, the rival Schumacher publicly named as the one he most respected. The competitive credibility is hard to manufacture. A near-fatal crash at the 1995 Australian Grand Prix, with a trackside tracheotomy keeping him alive, followed by championship titles in 1998 and 1999. The resilience story is documented, not retrofitted. Continues to operate inside elite Formula 1 as McLaren Partner Ambassador and as a permanent on-site Viaplay F1 analyst, which keeps the perspective current rather than nostalgic. Eleven seasons inside one of the most data-driven team environments in global sport, with first-hand experience of how engineers and decision-makers stay aligned when the consequences are immediate. Biography highlights Two-time Formula 1 World Drivers’ Champion (1998, 1999) with McLaren-Mercedes 20 Grand Prix victories, 51 podium finishes and 26 pole positions across 11 F1 seasons 1990 British Formula 3 Champion with West Surrey Racing McLaren Partner Ambassador since 2017; F1 analyst for Viaplay since 2022, alongside David Coulthard and Jos Verstappen Autosport Gregor Grant Award (2018) for lifetime contribution to motorsport; member of the Laureus World Sports Academy Biography Eleven seasons in Formula 1 produces a particular kind of operator. The environment is data-rich and unforgiving of indecision. A driver wins or loses by hundredths of a second, but the result depends on hundreds of people working in alignment for months. Mika Häkkinen won two World Drivers’ Championships in that environment, with McLaren-Mercedes in 1998 and 1999. He secured 20 Grand Prix victories and 51 podiums across his F1 career. Michael Schumacher, his principal rival across both title-winning seasons, named Häkkinen as the driver he most respected during his own career. His career also includes a near-fatal accident. In 1995, a tyre failure during qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix sent his McLaren into a barrier at high speed. FIA medical delegate Sid Watkins performed an emergency tracheotomy at the trackside, and Häkkinen spent two months in hospital. He returned to racing the following season and won his first championship three years later. Two roles keep Häkkinen close to the sport. He is McLaren’s Partner Ambassador, working with the team’s commercial leadership on strategic accounts. He is also part of Viaplay’s permanent on-site F1 broadcast team alongside David Coulthard and Jos Verstappen. The current exposure matters for the speaking work; the lessons land differently when the speaker is still inside the paddock most race weekends. Key speaking topics High-performance team execution Decision-making under pressure Resilience after public setbacks Sustained competitive performance over long campaigns Risk management in high-stakes environments Leadership in technically complex teams Focus and mental discipline Ideal for Senior leadership teams in sectors where execution margins are tight and outcomes are visible Sales and commercial organisations whose performance is measured continuously Annual conferences and after-dinner functions for high-performance corporate audiences Executive programmes focused on resilience and recovery from setbacks Audience outcomes A first-hand account of what sustained competitive excellence requires when the margins are narrow and the data is constant Specific lessons on how elite teams stay aligned through long, high-pressure campaigns A credible perspective on returning to the top after a serious public setback Direct insight into how senior operators make decisions in the seconds where most performance is decided

Why organisations work with Marc Priestley He spent a decade inside McLaren Racing during a Drivers’ Championship-winning era, and can describe how a thirty-second pit-stop is engineered, rehearsed and recovered when something goes wrong. Few speakers have lived that operational tempo. His material is structured around the actual mechanics of high-performance teams: role clarity, debrief culture, marginal gains, and how senior figures handle blame after a public failure. Not motivational; operational. His broadcast work for BBC, Sky Sports F1 and ESPN, plus Discovery’s Wheeler Dealers, makes him a natural choice when the brief calls for a speaker who can also host, moderate or anchor a programme. His two books, The Mechanic and Pitlane Lessons, give a senior audience a written through-line they can recommend internally after the session. Biography highlights McLaren Racing F1 mechanic, 2000-2009, including Number One Mechanic and pit-stop crew duties. Part of the McLaren team during Lewis Hamilton’s 2008 Drivers’ Championship season. Author of The Mechanic: The Secret World of the F1 Pitlane (Yellow Jersey, 2017). Author of Pitlane Lessons: What F1 Can Teach You About Life and Work, foreword by Jake Humphrey. Co-host of Wheeler Dealers on Discovery alongside Mike Brewer. Broadcaster and pundit for BBC, Sky Sports F1 and ESPN; founder of the Pitlane Life Lessons Podcast. Biography A McLaren pit-stop in 2008 took just under three seconds. The crew had rehearsed it thousands of times, knew exactly what each pair of hands would do, and had a debrief structure for every error. Marc Priestley spent a decade inside that environment, working his way up to Number One Mechanic before leaving the team in 2009. What he carried out of the paddock was a precise model of how a high-performance operation actually runs. Role design, communication protocols, blameless debriefs, recovery discipline after a public mistake. His keynote work translates those mechanics for senior leaders who recognise the pattern in their own teams: the failure under pressure that nobody had stress-tested for. Two books anchor the material. The Mechanic, published by Yellow Jersey, is a behind-the-scenes account of life inside an F1 team. Pitlane Lessons, with a foreword by Jake Humphrey, applies the operating principles to leadership and work. Both give buyers a written reference point alongside the keynote. The broadcasting career runs parallel. Priestley is an analyst and pit-lane reporter for Sky Sports F1, has worked for the BBC and ESPN, hosts the Pitlane Life Lessons Podcast and co-presents Discovery’s Wheeler Dealers with Mike Brewer. That range is why corporate clients book him for keynotes, panel chairing and full-event hosting from the same brief. Key speaking topics High-performance teamwork under time pressure Communication in operationally complex environments Marginal gains and continuous improvement Debrief culture and recovery after failure Decision-making in time-critical settings Leadership lessons from elite motorsport Event hosting, moderation and panel chairing Ideal for Senior leadership teams looking to stress-test how their organisation behaves under operational pressure. COOs, transformation leads and operations directors responsible for complex, time-critical execution. Sales and engineering leadership groups using offsites to reset team standards and feedback culture. Conference organisers who need a speaker who can also host, moderate or anchor the programme. Audience outcomes A clearer picture of how elite teams design roles so individuals can act fast without waiting for permission. A practical reference for blameless debriefs and how senior people respond after a public error. Named examples from inside an F1 team that translate to corporate operational settings. A framework for thinking about marginal gains as a discipline, not a slogan.

Why organisations work with Charles Clark A first-person account of a career ending in a single training session, used to give audiences a concrete frame for setbacks they are currently sitting with. Habit and goal-setting tools (Thrive Planner, Recap Journal) that give attendees something to take back to their desk on Monday rather than a feeling that fades by Wednesday. A book catalogue covering self-therapy, team dynamics, and personal goal design, which lets buyers match the talk to a sales kickoff, a wellbeing day, or a leadership offsite. Comfort across audience types: Fortune 500 sales teams, professional sports organisations, and college and military audiences, all referenced in his published client list. Biography highlights 3-time NCAA National Champion and 10-time All-American at Florida State University. Ranked 6th in the world over 100m at the IAAF World Championships in Berlin. Author of “Become Your Ideal Self: How to Heal Through Self Therapy” and “Guide to Thrive.” Creator of the Thrive Planner goal-setting system and the Recap Journal. Host of the Thrive Tribe Podcast on mindset, business, and athletic development. Speaking and training engagements referenced with Nike, Amazon, Google, NFL, MLB, NCAA, Raymond James, Johnson & Johnson, Pepsi Co, and the US Army. Biography A 99% tear in the right quadriceps ends a sprinter’s career. For Charles Clark, it ended a track career that had already produced three NCAA titles, ten All-American honours, and a sixth-place finish at the IAAF World Championships in Berlin. The injury removed the only professional path he had built for. What replaced it was a deliberate second discipline. Clark studied habits, goal design, and recovery from setback, then built tools around them: the Thrive Planner, the Recap Journal, and a set of books beginning with “Guide to Thrive” and “Become Your Ideal Self.” Each is a practical product, not a memoir. That practicality is what corporate buyers are responding to. Clark works with sales organisations at Raymond James, Frontier Communications, and Pepsi, with sports bodies including the NFL, MLB, and NCAA, and with military and education audiences. The story opens the room. The planner-and-habits content gives people something to do with what they heard. Clark’s work fits an organisation that has tried wellbeing weeks and motivational posters and wants something with a real exercise attached. He is not a leadership theorist. He is a performer who learned a second craft after the first one was taken away, and who teaches the second one with the same discipline. Key speaking topics Personal resilience after setback Habit design and goal-setting Mindset and mental health for high-pressure roles Sales-team motivation and kickoff energy Team culture and relationship-building Performance under pressure Ideal for Sales kickoffs and annual conferences in commercial organisations. Wellbeing days and mental health weeks where leaders want substance over slogans. Professional sports organisations and high-performance environments. College, university, and military audiences working on resilience and personal development. Audience outcomes A specific reframe for the setback the audience is currently sitting with, drawn from Clark’s own career-ending injury. A working set of habit and goal-setting tools attendees can apply the next day. Language for talking about mental health and personal performance inside a commercial culture. Practical decisions about where attention, energy, and recovery time should go in the next quarter.

Why organisations work with Debra Corey She built the Engagement Bridge, a ten-element model set out in Build It (Wiley, 2018) and road-tested across Reward Gateway’s client base. It gives HR and executive teams a shared diagnostic for where engagement is actually breaking. Her Bad Bosses Ruin Lives work names ten specific manager archetypes and the behaviours that produce them. It gives senior leaders a way to talk about poor management without it becoming personal. She has sat in the seat, twenty-plus years of senior HR roles at Gap Inc., Honeywell, Quintiles, Merlin Entertainments, and Reward Gateway. The case studies she uses are operational, not theoretical. HR Magazine ranked her on its Most Influential Thinkers list in 2021, and Inspiring Workplaces has named her on its Top 101 Global Employee Engagement Influencers list for multiple years running. She writes and speaks as a practitioner. Her six books give leadership teams a common vocabulary for engagement, recognition, values, and HR communication that outlasts the keynote. Biography highlights Author or co-author of six books on engagement, recognition, values, leadership, and HR communication, published with Wiley and Kogan Page among others. Creator of the Engagement Bridge model and the Great Boss Building Block framework. Former senior HR leader at Gap Inc., Honeywell, Quintiles, Merlin Entertainments, and Reward Gateway. Founder of DebCo HR Ltd (operating as Step It Up HR), established 2019. Ranked on HR Magazine’s HR Most Influential Thinkers list in 2021. Named Employee Benefits Professional of the Year by Employee Benefits Magazine. Biography Most organisations know their engagement scores are soft. Fewer can say where the break is, whether it sits in recognition, in values, in manager behaviour, or in how HR itself communicates. Debra Corey’s working career has been spent inside that diagnostic question. Twenty-plus years in senior HR at Gap Inc., Honeywell, Quintiles, Merlin Entertainments, and Reward Gateway gave her a view across retail, pharma, manufacturing, hospitality, and HR tech. In 2019 she left corporate life and founded DebCo HR, operating as Step It Up HR, to work on the same problem from the outside. The Engagement Bridge model, set out in Build It: The Rebel Playbook for World-Class Employee Engagement (Wiley, 2018, with Glenn Elliott), is the framework most associated with her. It breaks engagement into ten concrete elements, from purpose and reward through to manager behaviour, and gives HR and executive teams a shared way to identify which element is actually failing. Her later books push into specific pieces of that terrain: Appreciate It! on recognition, Bringing Your Values Out to Play on operationalising values, and Bad Bosses Ruin Lives (2023, with Ken Corey) on the ten archetypes of poor management. HR Magazine placed her on its Most Influential Thinkers list in 2021, and she has featured repeatedly on Inspiring Workplaces’ Top 101 Global Employee Engagement Influencers list. The through-line across the books, the consultancy, and the speaking is narrow and deliberate: make the gap between HR design and daily behaviour smaller. Key speaking topics Employee engagement and the Engagement Bridge model Employee recognition and appreciation Organisational values in practice Manager effectiveness and the Great Boss Building Block Workplace culture and employee experience HR communication and the IMPACT model Ideal for CHROs, Reward Directors, and People and Culture leads designing or resetting engagement and recognition programmes Executive teams where engagement or culture scores have stalled and the board wants a diagnostic, not a pep talk Organisations rolling out revised values or manager-capability frameworks and needing external credibility behind the launch HR conferences, leadership off-sites, and people-manager summits where the audience is operational, not theoretical Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary for engagement rooted in the ten elements of the Engagement Bridge A working view of where recognition programmes typically fail and what a working one looks like A practical read on the ten bad-boss archetypes and the behaviours that produce each A method for moving organisational values from poster to operating practice Named examples from Gap, Honeywell, Merlin Entertainments, Reward Gateway, and the wider client base in her books

Why organisations work with Kate Richardson-Walsh She captained an international team for 13 years through a deliberate, multi-cycle rebuild that moved from missing the podium to Olympic gold. That arc is what most senior leaders are actually trying to manage. She co-authored Winning Together with Helen Richardson-Walsh, a published account of the specific behavioural and cultural decisions that produced the Rio 2016 result. Buyers get a methodology, not a highlight reel. She brings a working coach’s perspective from elite environments at HC Bloemendaal, Hampstead and Westminster, and Field Hockey Canada, so the material lands as practice rather than retrospect. Her work on inclusive leadership is grounded in lived experience as one half of the first same-sex married couple to win Olympic gold, and is delivered without ideology. Biography highlights Captain of England and Great Britain women’s hockey for 13 years, with 375 international caps and 49 international goals. Olympic gold medallist at Rio 2016, leading an undefeated Team GB to victory over the Netherlands in the final, and Olympic bronze medallist at London 2012. Co-author of Winning Together: An Olympic-Winning Approach to Building Better Teams, published by Hachette. Awarded MBE in 2015 and promoted to OBE in 2017 New Year Honours for services to hockey. Hockey analyst and commentator for BBC Sport, BBC Radio 5 Live, and BT Sport, including the 2018 Commonwealth Games, the 2018 World Cup, and the Paris 2024 Olympics. Coaching career spanning HC Bloemendaal in the Netherlands, Head Coach at Hampstead and Westminster, Assistant Coach with Field Hockey Canada, and currently Specialist Coach with the China women’s national hockey team. Biography The 2016 Rio gold was the visible moment, but the work that produced it ran for more than a decade. Great Britain’s women’s hockey team had finished outside the medals for years before Kate Richardson-Walsh and a group of coaches and players committed to a different kind of operating model. That work, not the final, is what senior leaders actually find useful. Richardson-Walsh captained England and Great Britain for 13 years and finished her career as the most-capped female player in either programme, with 375 international appearances. Across that span she played four Olympic Games, took bronze at London 2012 (most of it with a broken jaw) and gold at Rio 2016, when Team GB went undefeated and beat the Netherlands in the final. Winning Together, written with her wife and Olympic teammate Helen Richardson-Walsh and published by Hachette, sets out the specific cultural decisions behind that result: how the team handled honest feedback, how it absorbed selection pain, how it stayed coherent through long stretches of pressure. It is a working manual, which is why corporate audiences engage with it. Since retiring she has coached at HC Bloemendaal in the Netherlands, led Hampstead and Westminster women’s first XI, and joined Field Hockey Canada as Assistant Coach in 2023. She is currently a specialist coach with the China women’s national hockey team. She is also a regular hockey analyst for BBC Sport, BBC Radio 5 Live, and BT Sport, and was part of the BBC commentary team at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Key speaking topics Team culture and accountability Trust and psychological safety in teams Leadership under sustained pressure Performance through uncertainty High-performance environments Inclusive leadership, belonging, and LGBT+ inclusion Resilience and mental wellbeing Sustaining excellence across long cycles Ideal for CEOs, executive teams, and board offsites focused on culture change and long-cycle performance CHROs and people leaders building inclusive leadership practice with evidence rather than slogans Transformation and integration leads working through multi-year programmes where early results are absent Senior leadership teams in regulated, high-pressure environments where standards must hold under scrutiny Audience outcomes A clear picture of how an underperforming team rebuilt itself into an Olympic-winning culture, with the specific decisions named. Practical reference points for handling honest feedback, selection conversations, and accountability without breaking trust. A more concrete vocabulary for what inclusive leadership looks like in a high-performance setting. Renewed confidence that long programmes without visible results can still be on the right track if the cultural work is real.